In my younger days I was quite a ‘religious’ person. I didn’t think any official religion had come close to the ‘truth’, but I did think there was some ‘truth’ to be had in some of them.
Anyway, at University, I went to a few church services just round the corner from the York Minster. Not as magnificent a building, but the services were more entertaining. I’ll be honest; the real reason I went was because I really fancied one of the girls who was a regular attendee. My strategy didn’t pay off but, on the plus side, I did get to learn a new word; glossolalia.
glossolalia :
also called speaking in tongues, (from Greek glōssa, “tongue,” and lalia, “talking”), utterances approximating words and speech, usually produced during states of intense religious experience.
It was a different experience to any church service I’d been to before. Brought up in the Catholic tradition I was used to barely audible, and mostly Irish (and mostly half pissed1), priests muttering away at the front, whilst the congregation sat, kneeled, or stood at various random times and muttered, also mostly inaudibly, the requisite phrases and devotions in response.
At this ‘charismatic’ church in York the service was very different. At some point(s) you’d have one (or more) women2 interrupting the service by poncing about in the aisles, jerking about like a spastic in a magnet factory3. This was, apparently, something called interpretive dance.
After this delightful spectacle the service would continue only to be interrupted again by someone else piping up to interpret the interpretive dance for us because no one could interpret it the first time round.
This helpful interpretation came in the form of a kind of bizarre recitative in which some woman4 would explain the seemingly random jerking we’d seen only a few minutes previously.
It was certainly a whole lot more entertaining than watching Father Hoare stumble about swinging his censer and muttering incomprehensible phrases in his wonderful brogue.
The guys did get a look-in, though. Inevitably the choir, comprised of women and men, would feel a bit left out of the manic proceedings and, at some point, would start singing in tongues. This weird and oddly tuneful noise would erupt as they’d all be gripped in some religious passion. It was quite an aural spectacle.
The first time I went I had to ask the object of my lust just what the heck was going on. Maybe she’d have fancied me if I’d got up and entertained the congregation in a similar fashion, but not even the promise of heaven between the sheets could move me that much.
I definitely began to feel like a bit of a second class “Christian”
Oh, so you haven’t spoken in tongues yet?
Full membership of the club was, it seemed, contingent on sounding like you’d taken LSD.
I get a similar ‘vibe’ these days when listening to, or reading, some of the pronouncements of the ‘woke’. It’s like they’re speaking in tongues. Stuff comes out of their mouths, or is committed to print, and all I hear, or read, is just some almost random gibberish.
Almost random.
Because whatever is said, or written, has to include some reference to the terrible hellscape of oppression we’re all living in, and have been living in, since the Europeans first decided to corrupt the world with their whiteness. It’s an omnipresent matrix of inescapable, intersecting, and invisible forces that only those who have woken up to it, or the marginalized, can perceive.
Asking for evidence of the existence this maleficent matrix is to actively support the matrix and the white overlords who maintain it.
I’ve listed many such examples of this woke glossolalia over the last couple of years. It’s like a competition to see who can get away with saying the most stupid thing. I’m still trying to process the one I became aware of only recently when reading Douglas Murray’s book, The War on the West; the history professor who described lawns as “an education in colonialism”.
But other subjects are caught up in the need to glossolaliate5 all over the place. Here's an astrophysicist:
“As an astrophysicist, I’m a product of institutions that are steeped in systemic racism and white supremacy . . . The tenets of white supremacy that show up [in physics] of individualism and exceptionalism and perfectionism . . . it’s either-or thinking, and there’s no subtlety, there’s no gray area. All of this manifests in the way that we think about our research, and what counts as good research, what counts as important research?”
I don’t know, it sounds a bit like sour grapes to me. The author, like the rest of us, is having to come to terms with their own mediocrity, and bemoans the fact that there are, indeed, some truly, truly, exceptional scientists which she, clearly, isn’t.
The whole virtue signalling system known as ‘woke’ is a modern parallel to the goofy glossolalia of the charismatic churches. You have to speak in tongues to signal that you are a fully ‘enlightened’ member of the club. At least the charismatic Christians only looked upon you with some kind of pity that you hadn’t elevated your spirit and worship to the dizzy heights of glossolalia. The woke look upon those who don’t glossolaliate their wokeness with contempt and despite.
I don’t know about you, but I sometimes wish we could time travel back to that happy valley between the excesses of the seventies and the excesses of today and try to get it right this time round.
The UK meaning here is not one of being angry. It means to be drunk. I don’t really blame the priests for being inebriated. If you had to go through that ordeal several times on a Sunday I think some chemical support is almost a pre-requisite. In the case of Father Hoare, the term pissed could be used to describe both his physical and emotional states. His sermons were full of angry proclamations about how we were all miserable sinners destined for Hell.
I am not sure why this was a ‘gendered’ activity, but the men never did this - at least at this particular church.
I am going to Hell for finding cruel and offensive quotes like this funny. The original comes from the character of Gene Hunt in the TV show Life on Mars which first aired in 2007. It’s a time travel show in which a modern day cop gets transported back to the seventies. The seventies cops are, naturally, horribly politically incorrect and somewhat racist. The full quote is the following : Now. Yesterday's shooting. The dealers are all so scared we're more likely to get Helen Keller to talk. The Paki in a coma's about as lively as Liberace's dick when he's looking at a naked woman. All in all this investigation’s going at the speed of a spastic in a magnet factory.
I never did get to the bottom of why it was only women who did this at this particular church. I imagine it was just a statistical fluke and other ‘charismatic’ churches had their share of men going a bit doolally.
This isn’t a word, but it damn well should be
""“As an astrophysicist, I’m a product of institutions that are steeped in systemic racism and white supremacy . . . The tenets of white supremacy that show up [in physics] of individualism and exceptionalism and perfectionism . . . it’s either-or thinking, and there’s no subtlety, there’s no gray area. """
As a physics person I find this comment WOKE & BULLSHIT; There is no gray in Physics every thing can be predicted and is known ( well except for the bullshit like string-theory ); I'm talking about real touch&feel physics; Practical stuff; Most 'employed' physics people do practical stuff;
Like all things those that can't do teach, and those who can't teach, teach PE;
Regarding Racism, well its STEM, which means low IQ generally aren't interested; Sure I guess you give every Downs-Child a PHD in Astro-Physics if you it makes you feel non-racist.
Almost all entry to hard science and later an exceptional or rewarding career require you to have been a child prodigee; If you didn't master calculus by 12 years of age by self-study, you probably are never going to amount to anything in math or physics; Sadly for most kids colored or not, if the calculus books ain't all the house, the kid will probably never think to open the book; Then there is the issue of distractions for the poor, pretty much common to the entire earth, if you weren't born rich, and/or your parents didn't have a high education, then your odd's climbing out of your fucking hole are zilch to low;
Once you get sub-atomic you enter "Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" Ghostery; In the book Persig argues that some don't believe in ghosts, but believe in 'electrons';
But this is obviously a very sour physics person, we achieve perfection because we want the right answers, individualism like math most great physics was done by solo thinkers out of the box;
Exceptionalism? Well you find prima-donnas in any field;
I too studied astrophysics and don't see any gray, because its an observational science, but when you start getting into 'cosomology', .e.g. Origin of the Universe shit then you have entered a religious debate;
I’ve never been to a church where glossolalia occurred, unless you count university or, now, my daily perusal of the big American papers. For instance, there was that lady who wrote in the Times— quoting another lady, an academic— “Cleopatra's experience was part of a history of oppression of Black women. Reclaiming Cleopatra as Black and choosing to portray her now as a Black woman highlights this history.” (I, too, find their assumption here that Cleopatra identified as a woman deeply troubling when he/they seems to have been a closeted trans man, at least culturally— hey, speaking in tongues is easy! Anybody can do it. The trick is calling it out like you’ve done here; none of this is apologetics, folks. It’s all just glossolalia.)